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THE NEW YORKER, JULY 8 & 15, 2013
On January 12th, the day that Tse-
ring Tashi set himself on fire, he
didn't seem particularly troubled. He
ate an early breakfast with his wife and
his parents in the house they shared in
a village near Amchok, a historically
Tibetan township in China's Gansu
Province. Then he took the family
herd---most of the animals were dzomos,
female yak-cow hybrids prized for their
milk yield---to frozen grasslands nearby.
He was twenty-two years old and an
accomplished horseman, and his fam-
ily was well respected locally. Tashi
watched the animals graze for a few
hours, then went home around noon,
leaving the herd in the care of friends. It
was a frigid, overcast day. Tashi told his
mother that he wanted to wear a tra-
ditional Tibetan cloak, or chuba. "You
should wear a nice thick one," she said.
She asked if Tashi would like to join her
for lunch, but he said that he needed to
get back to work.
Tashi stopped to see his friends and
asked if they would look after his ani-
mals a little longer. "I have to go into
town," he said. "There's something I
need to do there." He seemed to be car-
rying something heavy in the folds of
his chuba, but they didn't ask what it
might be.
When Tashi got to the main square
of Amchok, he took a container from
his cloak, doused his clothes in gasoline,
and set himself alight. He had wrapped
wire around his limbs, apparently to
insure that the fuel-soaked clothing
would stay in place. As flames engulfed
his body, he fell to the ground. Then he
got up and ran, darting away from some
Chinese police he saw on the road. Fi-
nally, he collapsed again, the flames
sweeping this way and that in the wind.
As his clothes turned to ash, Tashi
managed to raise his arms and bring
his hands together in a final gesture of
Buddhist prayer. "Gyawa Tenzin
Gyatso," he called out. "His Holiness
the Dalai Lama." A thirteen-second
video, apparently shot by a passerby
with a phone, shows Tashi's flaming
body at the moment he raises his arms.
In the background, a Tibetan woman
hurries a shocked child past the blaz-
ing man.
In the past two years, well over a hun-
dred Tibetans have immolated them-
selves in protest against Chinese rule.
The demonstrations have spread across
the Tibetan plateau, both in Chinese
LETTER FROM DHARAMSALA
AFLAME
A wave of self-immolations sweeps Tibet.
BY JEFFREY BARTHOLET
In the past two years, well over a hundred Tibetans have set fire to themselves in protest against Chinese rule.
ILLUSTRATION BY MARTIN ANSIN